Johann Hari: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected SolutionsSomething I posted at PeakPorspeity.com: "First of all... Thanks for the links, blackeagle.
I'm going to focus on the UBI article since I don't think that the concept will disappear anytime soon. I just finished reading a book by Johann Hari entitled Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression -- and the Unexpected Solutions. Hari -- a 14 year or so taker of SSRI drugs -- makes the case that depression is not caused by chemical imbalances in the brain but rather -- as the title implies -- the loss of community connections. I bring this up because he implictly endorses UBI through his glowing report of a UBI experiment that took place in Canada in the 1970s. However, earlier in the book, he lists the 1st cause of depression as the Disconnection of Meaningful Work. You can make the case that UBI permits recipients to find meaningful work but I don't think that it is that simple...
Meaningful work, not UBI, is the key to a healthy future. I'll be quite honest here... I don't know many people who have meaningful work. Many just sit in front of a computer doing mindless excrement all day. This work -- even if meaningful -- will not exist in the future. It should also be noted that most of those who work in the healthcare field will not have work in the future due to the unsustainable nature of the system. The list goes on and on.
The focus should be on meaningful work rather than on UBI."

Johann Hari: Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on DrugsExcerpt: "Then you need to have a deeper strategy -- one that stops these wounds from forming in the first place. To do that, you need to change the culture so people find life less unbearable. We have to build a society that looks more like Rat Park [an environment in a rat-based study that allowed rats to have community rather than live in isolation] and less like a rat race. [p.227]

Peter Turchin: Ages of DiscordI'm borrowing a review of the book at goodreads since it succinctly describes the content: "For people interested in historical cycles but wanting something more solid than generational theory of Strauss et al. Demographic trends seen in the general population's well-being and growth of aspiring elites and competition among them may hold a key to the cycling of American history."

Albert Bandura: Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of ControlWhile I think that self-efficacy theory has strong theoretical potential, it is simply not possible for most as the result of a cultural/societal/economic apparatus that puts up structural roadblocks at every turn.
Excerpts: "...the lives of innovators and social reformers driven by unshakable efficacy are not easy ones. They are often the objects of derision, condemnation, and persecution, even though societies eventually benefit from their persevering efforts." [p.2]
"The value of a theory is ultimately judged by the power of the methods it yields to effect change." [p.10]
"In many areas of life, individuals do not have direct control over the institutional mechanisms of change and therefore must turn to proxy control to alter their lives for the better." [p.17]

Gregory Cochran: The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution"This [farming/wealth accumulation] allowed for nonproductive elites, which would have been impossible among hunter-gatherers. We emphasize that these elites were not formed in response to some societal need: They took over because they could." [p70] "Farming led to elites, and there was no avoiding their power. Foragers could walk away from trouble, but farms were too valuable (too important to the farmers' fitness) to abandon. So farmers had to submit to authority..." [p111] 'As Pervez Hoodbhoy (head of the physics department in Islamabad) has written, "No major invention or discovery has emerged from the Muslim world for well over seven centuries now." ' [p127] "...dairying is much more efficient than raising cattle for slaughter. It produces five times as many calories per acre." [p181]

Jerome Tuccille: It Usually Begins With Ayn RandReferenced in a couple of notes in Democracy: The God That Failed...
This is a first hand account of the early libertarian movement in the US. Interestingly enough, the author wrote the first Trump biography.

John Gray: False Dawn: The Delusions of Global CapitalismJohn Gray is the favorite thinker of George Soros and Nassim Taleb. In this book he exposes the myths of the "free market."
“In reality a laissez-faire economy – that is to say, an economy in which markets are deregulated and put beyond the possibility of political or social control – cannot be reinvented. Even in its heyday it was a misnomer. It was created by state coercion and depended at every point in its workings on the power of government. By the First World War the free market had ceased to exist in its most extreme form because it did not meet human needs – including the need for personal freedom.”
Yet, without diminishing the size of the state or reinstating the social institutions that supported the free market in its Victorian heyday, free market policies have encouraged new inequalities in income, wealth, access to wealth and quality of life that rival those found in the vastly poorer world of the mid-nineteenth century.” [p.5]
(*****)

Jean Baudrillard: The Illusion of the End"The West, naive as ever, believes it is resented for its power and wealth...[p.49]...Capital has cannibalized all negativity...[p.52]...Nature...is becoming residual, insignificant, and encumbrance, and we do not know how to dispose of it. [p.78]...We build huge office spaces which are intended to remain eternally empty....put up buildings that are still born...[p.79]" Provides insight into the human condition. Highly recommended (*****)

Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural SystemsRecognizes that the lack of an integrative framework is a problem for sustainable development. Published in 2002. I wish I had found out about it earlier. Tough book to find. Expensive. Textbook? I would like to see chapter 14 published by itself as it may help lay people visualize the various development factions. (****)

Amartya Sen: Development as FreedomRecommended reading for anyone interested in development -- personal or otherwise. One can support most of the ideas of Hayek and still recognize that early opportunities to learn are a key ingredient in maximizing potential. I think that the author is a little ambivalent about population growth. I get the sense that he is unaware that finite resources and unlimited material growth are incompatible. (*****)